Vacation companions can be a real trip
“Not another museum!”
“Are you going to waste another day hanging around the pool?”
“Shopping? You went shopping yesterday. If that’s all you’re going to do, why didn’t you stay home and vacation at the mall?”
“Why do you have to go to every restaurant in the guidebook? Can’t you just grab a sandwich once in a while? You’re spending all your time eating.”
“If you’re going to waste half the day sleeping, what was the point of coming here?”
“Can’t you think of something to do that’s not so damn educational? This was supposed to be a vacation.”
“All you do is take pictures. Who do you think is going to look at them?”
“It’s stupid to spend all that time writing postcards when half the people don’t even know we’re away and the other half we’ll probably see before the cards arrive.”
“Can’t you leave something to see next time?”
Such are the joys of the shared vacation. A great many people have the identical idea of holiday fun, Miss Manners has noticed. It is in ragging other people about what they consider to be holiday fun.
This is bad enough when friends get together after their vacations to exchange stories about the adventures they have had. That is the opportunity for them to characterize one another’s choices as foolish:
“Really – you still go there? But it’s so spoiled now. We used to go years ago, before it was discovered.” (So how did you find it? With a compass?)
And so on. But when the criticism comes from those who are also on the trip, it sort of defeats the idea of having a holiday.
Even those who like to utilize their time off from work to schedule self-improvement routines are amazingly ungrateful for suggestions on how to do this. It seems that the “self” they had in mind was to be not only the subject for improvement, but the decision-maker about what improvement was necessary.
Yet people insist upon bringing critics along on their vacations, just because they happen to be in love with them or related to them – or fond enough to make the notion of splitting costs seem appealing. And sometimes those who seemed perfectly satisfied with them at home unexpectedly blossom into critics when they travel.
Carping at others for their leisure-time choices is not a polite habit. It is not even a useful one, because the most it can hope to achieve is to produce a conscripted companion who has surrendered choice in the interests of peace. And you know how surly they can be.
Miss Manners hopes it will help if she lets vacationers in on an apparently well-kept secret: There is nothing rude about deciding to spend the day differently from others with whom one is traveling.